


he was the winter's child

by templemarker



Category: Mabinogion (Myth)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Genderswap, Canon Incest, Canon Rape, F/M, M/M, Other, animal death (in passing), canon bestiality, canon mpreg, canon non-con, dead doves historically consumed, mythology is just one big trash party, the mabinogion is a kinkmeme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 21:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8939788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: Gwydion, the eldest, and Gilvaethwy, the youngest, had been inseparable nearly all the years of the young fool's life. His brother, the heir and clever dewin, had taken his hand when he came at last from their mother's fosterage, and never really put it down.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madamebadger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/gifts).



> For a primer on the Fourth Branch of the Maginogion, on which this story is based, [BBC Wales has a solid synopsis](http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/myths_mabinogion_04.shtml). Please note that mythology does terrible, terrible things to its characters; warnings originating from the canon are in the tags. 
> 
> With my sincerest gratitude to MC, my partner in crimes against fictional characters for fifteen years now. Following each other back and forth through the slings and arrows of Yuletide is something I cherish, even as we're smashing plates and gnashing teeth and filling a spreadsheet with how much we are drinking as we frantically write and viciously edit our stories. 
> 
> My thanks to madamebadger for the prompt; I really connected with your request. Yet every time I tried to get to the stories of the sons' adult lives, I kept tripping over the complete hash that was their origin. I hope this fic still stirs your interest.

Gwydion, the eldest, and Gilvaethwy, the youngest, had been inseparable nearly all the years of the young fool's life. His brother, the heir and clever dewin, had taken his hand when he came at last from their mother's fosterage, and never really put it down. 

That, perhaps, was the core of the problem: that Gwydion had been more of a mentor than a brother, more a loving tutor than an equal. He indulged Gilvaethwy as no other did, and the light shone upon him with Gwydion's favor. For Gilvaethwy's part, he seemed content to follow along the path his brother made before him, an undemanding companion though a true one. Gilvaethwy had no ambition; but then, his elder brother wore enough for the both of them, cunning drawn around him like a cloak. 

And then, they were caught out, Gilvaethwy for his violent trespass against their uncle the king's maiden attendant, and Gwydion for both allowing the thing to happen and to keep watch against others observing the deed. Mậth their uncle was aggrieved with fury, devoted to his foot-bearer above all other souls, for it was she who kept him from the black caul of death, she who loved him with her chaste heart and duty, she who answered her dishonor with vengeance. 

∫⧝∫

They were called to their transgressions before the whole of the king Mậth's court, dirty and tired and hungry to the marrow for want of the food Mậth had ordered his kingdom to deny them. Mậth bellowed his shame and anger as all witnessed; Goewin, whose mad eyes never left Gilvaethwy's, smiled cruelly in a fashion that had never touched the sweet maiden's mien before Gilvaethwy took his hands up against her. 

And so the king of Gwenydd spent down his rancor, and his ageless eyes and dewin's mantle set upon his two nephews with resolve. The court fell silent as he stretched out his arm before the two men, and Gwydion knew at once that he was calling upon his knowledge of the Gramarye for a fitting amercement. 

It was all of a breath for Gwydion to say to his brother, "Hold fast, bachgen, I will protect--" before all words were lost; and Gilvaethwy the red hind shied away from the court and Gwydion the stag was quick after them. 

He would admit, though, that those first mouthfuls of fresh grass of Gwanwyn tasted as sweet and delicious to his barren, empty stomach as any feast in the Great Hall.

∫⧝∫

Into the woods, then, and what they might find there. This was no shape-changing working as when his uncle and king Mậth had taught him the Gramarye; no, this was something deeper, owing more to the Wild Magic than the pages of the book. Wearing his crest of antler and picking through the darkened autumn forest, Gwydion found his mind turning more and more to Cernunnos, knowing he had never done more than any foolish peasant or self-serving courtier to pay obeisance to the god and curry his favor. Well would that folly be paid now, he thought, when his weary mind turned away from the constant scouting for food and shelter, from quelling the nervous, fearful tremblings of the doe who was his brother.

It was hard to keep his head about him, though his eyes fell unfailingly on Gilvaethwy as iron to lodestone. They had been beasts for some time now, though Gwydion could not remember precisely how to recognize what amount of time that was. In his stag body, he could not speak in his mother tongue, nor could he form the words he needed to work from the Gramarye; and with every moment it seemed like his Gil bach forgot that he wasn't the young, untried doe he had cause and form to be. 

Gwydion took to moving the deer with his body, with his nose, and the smaller female huffed and snorted, but did follow Gwydion's clumsy instruction. They were far away from the sounds of men, following the treeline against the hills borne up against the mountain. A few times they had encountered small herds of like beasts, and Gwydion fought the urge to confront the bull whose offensive leavings made his scent twitch in Gil bach's nose. Gwydion resisted, from the thread of his own mind he'd fought tirelessly to retain, and instead pushed his hind further along the forest. 

Yet as the bugle calls of those other, weaker bulls echoed throughout the clear day, Gwydion began to lose what little self-sense he possessed as something new stole over his mind. There was some scent he had never caught before, and as he sniffed the air, he drew closer to his hind. When she shied away he pressed closer, and the bull he was saw the terrified whites of her eyes before she ran, and he relentlessly after her, a new and entirely absorbing urge driving him furiously along.

∫⧝∫

The bull looked up one day, and realized he was Gwydion. He turned an anxious eye upon Gilvaethwy, and saw he was with child.

With all that was left of his newly refound soul, Gwydion cursed and sang out his bitter laughter into the dark yr hydref night. 

He grudgingly saw what his uncle the king had done in his wrath: for Gilvaethwy, who took a woman who was not his nor who did want to be, he would learn to bear the very thing he had wrought. And Gwydion, who indulged Gil bach to the point of disgrace, who held his hand and drew him along all the years of his young life, would bear the thing with him. 

Gwydion looked at the red hind, beginning to grow full with young, curled in the moss of the forest floor, seemingly content. And some voice within him remarked, _This might settle who of his nephews would be his heir,_ then snorted out his displeasure again.

∫⧝∫

They returned as if called by Mậth's enchantment, and were granted enough of their sense back to understand that it had been a year, that Gilvaethwy had borne a child, and their uncle had shorn the boy of his fawn-form like water on sealskin, naming him Hydwn and acknowledging him as the son of the Heir of Gwynedd, nephew of the King Mậth ap Mathonwy. The child was bewildered, falling to the floor as his only two legs failed him.

Gwydion the stag looked at Gilvaethwy the hind, and in this brief respite from their beastly minds Gwydion's heart leapt at the broken and motherly look directed at their young. The fawn -- now Hydwn -- had barely begun stepping past his mother's hooves, and now he was taken from them, still on his milk and now a wholly other animal. Gwydion drew his Gil bach close, nuzzled and licked at his coat to draw the sorrow from him, to soothe a mother's broken heart. 

It was but a moment, and then their uncle the King swept Hydwn from the carpet where he had fallen -- Hydwn was too overcome to even cry -- and with a hard look in his wise dewin's eyes, he raised his hand and laid a new enchantment changing their forms. Suddenly Gwydion was a sow, and as he looked, bewildered, at his brother, he saw Gil bach was a boar. 

A chill ran through him, an awful noise escaping his snout. 

"Yes," said Mậth the king, "return to us in a year, and we shall see what you bring." Then he banished them back to the forest from which they had come.

∫⧝∫

Gwydion bore three weals. Two of them died, one on the journey that drew them back to the realm of Gwynedd, and the male who was left was transformed and named Hychdwn. Gwydion knew a new pain then, and no comfort Gilvaethwy could offer could suffice.

∫⧝∫

And then they were wolves, this transformation the worst of all; Gwydion remembered his lust for battle in the hares he ran down, the times they came to close to an occupied territory and he was forced to test his savagery against true beasts. He remembered the human rush of cutting down an enemy, and the gaunt intelligence of the wolf absorbed the man's lust for battle and turned relentless, vicious.

The dog-wolf brought the meat to his mate, her belly beginning to drag with the weight of the bitch-wolf's pups. He watched the night as she ate, carefully licked spare drops of blood from her front paws, curled within the den she'd made as she whelped.

∫⧝∫

All but one cub failed in this y gaeaf, a harsher season than the two before and bitter with it. The adult wolves drew close as the wind raged beyond their den, pressing the dog-pup's small body between their heat, encouraging him to take the milk that was only for him, now.

When the enchantment called them back, they proceeded slowly, and the dog-wolf pushed his mate and his young into the thicket at the merest indication of danger. 

They were dirty and gaunt and brought death with them as they entered the King their uncle's keep. The dog-pup, by now used to the constant interventions of his pack-of-two, peered mistrustfully but with curiosity at the funny beast before them, unlike any other he'd seen before. 

And then he was Bleiddwn, and the dog-wolf knew himself to be Gwydion, and knew his mate to be his Gilvaethwy. Though he was relieved and humbled beyond measure at Mậth, King of Gwenydd's release, there was an equal and darker part of him that wished they had never stepped foot again in this cold stone keep, that he and his mate and their young had stayed in the forest far away from the retributions of man. 

When he was transformed a last time back into the man he had once been, ages ago, he looked up into his uncle the King's clear eyes, and understood the lesson.


End file.
